Idiots

It is my contention that if someone chooses to believe in something that is patently absurd, or impossible then they are an idiot. How anyone can believe that the supernatural is possible, or that gods create reality out of magic is beyond me. How absurd does something have to be before people will not believe in it? When believers talk to me about their ridiculous concepts, I just cannot understand how any half way intelligent person could possibly accept their ideas as the least bit plausible. Yet they attempt to make me feel like I'm the unreasonable one, as though ghosties and goulies and long legged beasties are just a normal part of human experience. It is not any part of my experience! In my youth I sought out and tried to get in touch with anything of a supernatural nature, but it was all futile. There is simply nothing there, I wish there were, it would make life infinitely more interesting, but life is interesting enough just the way it really is, we don't need magic and the supernatural to make our lives more meaningful. If you must have something more, if you insist that magic and the supernatural are part of your universe, then I am sorry, but you are an idiot!

Thank you for writing this. This is exactly how I feel about these people. Sometimes when I think about those beliefs, I almost lose my trust in humanity thinking how people actually believe these things are true. And the part about them thinking you're the crazy one applies to those nuts in my life too. As if my disbelief in some invisible fairy that created the universe and all of the other silly things they believe is somehow unreasonable but their belief in it is perfectly normal.

As a side note, when people say they believe in God, I say, "You think a leprechaun created the universe?!" When they correct me and say, "No, God," I reply with, "They're both non-existent; do we really need to have an argument about whether or not he's wearing green?" Believing in both is just as absurd, but they don't make that connection, apparently.

Actually, there's plenty in theoretical physics to possibly explain the existence and "supernatural" powers of a god-like being. Things are only "supernatural" until we can explain them, after all. Knowing this made it particularly hard for me to let go of religion, but the fact that a god-like being could possibly have evolved somewhere out in the cosmos is hardly evidence of any god or of truth in any religion whatsoever.

Galen:
"God-like being" You can choose to define god in terms that are so general as to be acceptable even to a hard atheist like me, ie. Einstein's definition - god is the rules by which the universe functions. Also, most standard deffinitions of god posit his having created the universe, so how could he have evolved in a cosmos that he was supposed to create. And personally I find nothing in theoretical physics that could possibly justify any belief in the supernatural.

And personally I find nothing in theoretical physics that could possibly justify any belief in the supernatural.

Ditto. Some theists try to use quantum weirdness as a hiding spot for God, but all it does is show their ignorance of quantum mechanics. It's a weak God of the Gaps argument.

I just cannot understand how any half way intelligent person could possibly accept their ideas as the least bit plausible.

You should look into the psychology of humans a bit more. I understand well enough how smart people can be deluded. It makes me less angry...until I meet the willfully ignorant or the intellectually dishonest. Those are the people that piss me off, not the plain misguided person that was raised on fluffy ideas.

Reggie: I have a dear friend who prides herself on her ignorance. She has no desire to understand how things work. I really like her and I really care about her, but she is an idiot. I understand the psychology of humans (I am an LPC), but even those raised on fluffy ideas should at least be aware of information and seek it out, to do otherwise is to be an idiot. Now, being an idiot does not imply that one is ethically or morally less than anyone else, it just means that you don't give a rats ass about learning the truth and are happy in your fluffy world. If that's what you want, go for it, but that doesn't make you any less an idiot.